


Arachne

by Hyacinthium



Series: Rotary [5]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Tokyo Ghoul, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Canon Typical Content, Character Death, Disordered Eating, Graphic Description, Kokichi's Self-Defense Humor, M/M, Mindscrew, No Smut, Omniscience is a Lie, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicide, Time Loop, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-05-29 01:06:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15061703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyacinthium/pseuds/Hyacinthium
Summary: Kokichi knows that stories don't always have heroes or happy endings, that some books are realistic, and he hates those. He also knows that not all people can be called people, due to the simple fact that some are born monsters. Waking up in a strange classroom- he hates that too.Some things can never be changed. Your sins will never be undone.





	1. Rotisserie

**Author's Note:**

> Alderson loop
> 
> Alderson loop is a rare slang or jargon term for an infinite loop where there is an exit condition available, but inaccessible in the current implementation of the code, typically due to programmer's error. These are most common and visible while debugging user interface code.
> 
> A C-like pseudocode example of an Alderson loop, where the program is supposed to sum numbers given by the user until zero is given, but where the programmer has used the wrong operator:
> 
> sum = 0; while (true) { printf("Input a number to add to the sum or 0 to quit"); i = getUserInput(); if (i * 0) { // if i times 0 is true, add i to the sum sum += i; // sum never change because (i * 0) is 0 for any i; it would change if we had != in the condition instead of * } if (sum > 100) ̶{̷ ̶b̶r̶e̴a̶k̴;̷ ̶/̸/̷ ̷t̸e̶r̵m̴i̷n̴a̷t̴e̶ ̴t̸h̶e̵ ̵l̵o̶o̴p̸;̸ ̴e̶x̴i̵t̷ ̵c̶o̶n̸d̴i̶t̷i̷o̶n̶ ̴e̵x̷i̷s̴t̷s̶ ̶b̵u̸t̶ ̵i̶s̷ ̵n̸e̸v̷e̴r̴ ̵r̶e̷a̵c̶h̸e̷d̸ ̵b̵e̸c̷a̵u̷s̷e̶ ̷s̸u̵m̶ ̸i̸s̴ ̵n̸e̴v̵e̷r̶ ̵a̶d̶d̷e̷d̷ ̶t̴o̶ ̸}̸ ̵}̸

He's dying. Bleeding out and going into shock in Shuichi's arms. Kokichi knows this, he understands that his turn at beating the game is finished, so he lies. It's his greatest skill. 

Everything will not be fine. 

[There was once a boy who became a spider.] 

Kokichi wakes up. He wakes up with his head screaming, dizziness and nausea curling in his body, slumped upright in a dark confined space. His eyes blink a dozen times to the sight of nothing. 

A locker. 

It must be a locker, he knows. He's not sure how he knows, but shaking hands slap around to meet cold metal and eventually the grates that must be on the locker door. Kokichi bangs on it to no avail. He races to find any sort of internal mechanism for escape, but the door is shut tight and it is so very dark-

It's always dark now, but somehow Kokichi gets a rush of terror that he hasn't had in a long time. 

He whimpers and hates himself for it. 

[While a boy still, he met a young woman who was skilled at weaving stories. Being a fool made him admire her. He wanted to be like her.]

Weighted footsteps start clanging towards what must be the room Kokichi is in. Their owner slides open what sounds like a wooden door, walking inside. 

“Hello?” asks a young male voice. 

[The boy spun narrative after narrative just to gain praise. He felt less alone now, people clapping his back and saying sweet words to him, but the woman who took him to the loom was intolerant of his success. She wanted to teach him a lesson.]

He takes a gulp of air and bangs again, “I'm stuck in here! Kinda not cool, rate it zero out of ten, would really like it if you helped me out. Literally!”

Panic makes him ramble a bit. 

Kokichi leaves the locker after a few minutes of mutual fumbling and by falling into armor hard arms. The person in question barely staggers back. Well, it's not like Kokichi ever weighs much. 

The person, introduced as Kiibo, makes the usual noise over Kokichi's eyes. 

[She figured it would be a lesson in humility that she'd wished to have learnt as a beginner. So she offered him a test of skill with a smile.] 

First because they're two different colors. Then because Kokichi can't see. And more because Kokichi slips into his usual desperate talk to get some measure of control. Though Kiibo seems to ignore it in favor of being quiet and helping Kokichi step over obstructions. 

When the killing game is announced is the moment that Kokichi knows. 

He won't be a person to them anymore. No matter how cruel or awful Kokichi treats them, everyone will see him as a liability, or target. They will wrap hands around his throat and say that it's all to keep him safe. 

Kokichi dies unaware, having run off after weeks of suffocating coddling from people he shouldn't feel nostalgic over. Never knowing how, who, or why. 

[They competed against one another, but the boy won.] 

Kokichi wakes up in the locker. He wakes to thin beams of light coming through the locker door, head throbbing and whispering dangerous secrets. He sweats and sees faces overlapping faces. 

Everyone and everything is far too familiar and Kokichi just tries to do what he can to actually keep things together. He spends time with that detective and jokingly offers to show Shuichi his room. Shuichi actually blushes at him, stumbling over a response. That relationship falls apart when Kokichi reveals Maki to be an assassin. 

It isn't enough. 

Something must be wrong with Kokichi, because no matter what he says, everyone else always takes his words the worst possible way. In the end, he gives into the urge to protect himself with cruelties. 

He dies with his head bleeding profusely and a concussion making him cry in a corner, alone.

Alone. 

[She grew angry. The boy was given a curse disguised as a reward. However, the woman was not like the goddess Athena. She was not all powerful.]

Kokichi wakes up in a bedroom- in an apartment. It is empty and uncomfortable, the way he needs it. He skips afternoon classes to go to an interview with a writer from Team Danganronpa. The boy that meets him is around his age and is oddly easy to talk to. Kokichi feels too much deja vu to handle it. 

Gets pulled out of his memories. Out of being too close to comprehending beeping hospital apparatuses and-

[He survived the story she made for his punishment. The spider that the boy became spun her up and stole her throne, grown desperate; He turned her into yet another game piece. He was heavy with regret. He wanted to fix His biggest failures. The boy who became a spider had only ever wanted to help. ]

Her name is Yoshiko, meaning lucky girl, but DICE adds ‘little’ to her name and so she adopts it as her only name. Better name, even. She wakes up in a locker and for a moment feels nothing but a horrible sense of confusion, but then the memories trickle in and shove her down and hollow her out-

She becomes a parasite in her own body. Sooner still, and Koyoshiko will be just another snake hissing in the ears of another carved open doll. 

[He took His silk and began to spin His webs, weaving self contained realities and searching for one that would be the last.]

Kaede seems to have the potential to be the kind of leader that Koyoshiko can't- more active and direct. Koyoshiko prefers to guide and prod people into becoming able to stand on their own. That's what she owes to DICE. Good leaders help people be able to live without them. But maybe, maybe the others here need someone like Kaede and things will work well. 

The Detective left behind stumbles and still stands on his own two feet. However. 

Koyoshiko was wrong. She tried to ignore the truths swimming in her head and now two people are dead. 

A fierce leer made of anguish and nightmares takes hold of her face. It takes an oh so similar and very different girl to ease it off. Angie gently pries away Koyoshiko’s defenses with barely a word of her God- and it's Koyoshiko’s heart that breaks when she and Shuichi investigate Angie's corpse. She remembers long talks about the differences in their methods. Talking about that one person with renewed mischief. 

Of Shuichi. 

The girl can't lie to herself after that. 

She smiles and exits the stage during a session of begging for the dead to provide closure. The look that Shuichi gives her makes her want to throw up. It wasn't very real at all, in the end. 

She hopes that he understands someday. 

[For you see, the once-boy had met a snake.]

Kokichi wakes up. He recognizes that girl from the orphanage that he ran away from. She's taller and her gaze is deader than when he left. Harukawa Maki lies about being a glorified baby sitter. People even jump to believe her too, which is hilarious. 

But maybe she's changed in a good way. 

Maybe Kokichi can make up for his cowardice. 

The boy had regretted leaving without trying to take more people with him, spent years and years expecting to be found, but now he might not have to. Not anymore. 

He gets poisoned, and just ten minutes later his jaw is stiffening, soon he's convulsing on the floor at every sight and sound. Kokichi's throat is closing up while his nerves burn. He can't even make himself cry out for DICE. 

Something tells him that he deserves this. 

[The boy, a fool, found comfort in the offer of finding the snake to be a monster. One by one did all his sources of more immediate comfort die.]

Kokichi doesn't trust anyone here. Can't. So instead he lets himself writhe and crawls into the darkness of his bathroom. 

There is someone knocking on his door. 

He can neither get up nor scream anymore. Kokichi is being choked one final time by that fucking murderer that no one cares about but pretends to accept anyway. Life after Kokichi left the orphanage had changed her after all, she got worse, she either doesn't remember anything or does and hates him because now he's locked up in this still living corpse and it burns-

It might not be her, hisses someone while Kokichi's skull bounces against his floor tiles. Each thwack makes his vision swim and the seizures hit harder. 

Something cracks-

[As others died like mayflies, it was eventually just a handful of people.] 

Gonta kicks his door down, scoops him up, and holds him. It hurts to exist. Another pair of eyes, golden eyes stare down at them in abject horror. A swish of red and black. Kokichi can't even apologize, not anymore. 

[And by the time he realized that one truth- there was only regret and guilt and another corpse.]

Kokichi dies warm and suffering from agonizing poison. 

Faintly, he hears an announcement play. 

[Soon enough did the boy get to see the snake break and break. He realized, there was no snake. Just another boy.] 

Kokichi gets shoved into ‘his’ twitching body and weeps. His locker is pulled open by a familiar face with the same yellow grey eyes he sees behind his eyelids. Half hidden by a hat, but still so worried. 

Wonders how long it will take. 

Kokichi lets himself get up and takes the role of a tricky brat that still has some wisdom to be valued. He can see that the detective wants someone to imprint on. Kokichi doesn't want that. 

[It was unacceptable when he woke up. So he refused to wake up. He caught the woman in hands dissolved to claws and swallowed up his curse. Forced lines of privilege and code to sew themselves into him, and tried again.]

So Shuichi sees him as a mystery that can't be solved, and after Kaede dies trying to fix her mistake, Kokichi ends up trying to comfort the boy despite himself. 

They grow closer than Kokichi thinks they should. Shuichi is earnest and grows past any stress or grief born idealization, in part because Kokichi is so painfully honest in demonstrating just how flawed he is, and because the two of them are made into something like partners. 

Kokichi lets Shuichi kill him. 

[Because it was what the boy-snake said that he wanted to do, before he died. Try again. Do it better.] 

They had worked so hard to beat the Despair Road, Kokichi buzzing with dread and anticipation the whole time, and what they arrived to see as their victory prize was. Was. Is. Pointlessness. 

Zero reason for any of it, and if Kokichi could be rational then he'd probably point out all the flaws in the story. Be angry and frigid about how absolutely contrived it all is. State facts and how things just don't work this way. 

Instead, Kokichi laughs and laughs. There is no one waiting for him back home. 

[Because He is not some poor weaver woman turned into a lowly arachnid by a jealous deity.]

No home to get back to. 

The last thing he sees are despair filled eyes and the memories of a red stained outside world stealing their oxygen. There is nothing left but that truth. 

The one they found at the end of the road, ending with kisses and plans to stall the game. Shaking hands growing firm around Kokichi's delicate windpipe. Again. 

So that no one will be able to continue, or everyone will die a merciful death from blissful ignorance. 

Kokichi tries- tries to smile but he just really can't-

[Somewhere along the way they both became lost. They gained too much weight in their souls, data always expanding, and it twisted them until they became something other.]

Kokichi does not wake up, has never woken up, simply comes back into focus when fifteen young lives get placed inside of his shell. 

There'd been at least three years of sudden and constant construction going on. It was unexpected. Kokichi had assumed that his plaster, support beams, and shattered windows; had finally been left to rot in abandonment. It had happened before when he had been young, some one hundred years in total and twenty as a Genius Loci. Back then he'd been more of an it and a Mental Institute. 

But eventually some people in work clothes and suits had looked past the dirty history of his walls. They took hammers and large machines until he turned into a school. 

[Only one goal survived. To continue weaving new worlds. To continue shedding skins and making new lives to puppet.] 

He had gone maybe fifty years until the towns nearby just stop sending their children to walk his halls. Kokichi had been named, and had manifested a body for his own enjoyment and play. He jammed the lockers of bullies and blasted water fountains on kids about to overheat.

[So the ‘game’ continued to be played between two monsters that could never truly meet.]

The one art teacher who stares gets all his dirty secrets leaked, his own damn fault for being foolish enough to use the school computers for his filth. Kokichi never forgets the sleepy years of people suffering and worsening in mental instability. The silence of only urban explorers.

There's a dome over him now. Now, but no, because Kokichi refuses to bow down to a game where kids die. This school of contradiction is him, these staged places of foliage-decay and shining technology, Kokichi is the only one who belongs here. 

Schools should not be where humans go to suffer and die ignoble deaths. He fiddles with the straps of his straight-jacket-school-uniform. 

[To reach out to You and grasp Your hand wholeheartedly.] 

Kokichi lays his weak human shell down and laughs as his walls crumble under an assault of light. 

It takes days to completely fade away from ruined foundations and thick glass shards from the dome. The footsteps of fourteen people rush back in and try to find Ouma Kokichi, but only a tattered straight jacket remains. Sweaty hands and gold eyes grab it and refuse to let go. A suspicious lump of building materials lies nearby. 

Months later they're buried near a grave for someone whose story took too long to find. 

The same name, same face, but Shuichi doesn't think that anyone ever knew. The body had only been found during renovations to turn the building into a school. The construction crew and other people involved had all needed to donate for a proper burial and cremation. 

The last of Kokichi's ghost melts off his shoulders like a sigh, and Shuichi hopes to maybe see him again. 

[That also became twisted.] 

Another doll gets discarded, thin pitch fingers plucking a twitching snake from where the spinal cord should be. 

Medusa pauses to watch the remains get gobbled up by another, but still living, corpse. The spiderling doesn't last very long after that.

He pinches His nails into His newest failure. 

It jolts back to life- and another pair of eyes is consumed. The memories compile up nice and get sorted neatly. A trick that He found long ago, though it eventually made Him unable to do His own dirty work, and the data compounds once more. 

A shame that the rest can't. That He can't fit inside of a ‘flesh and blood body’ any longer. 

He grabs a piece of meat this time. Digs it out of rippling ink skin and snaps it from past his ribcage. It has no difference from any other material. But, perhaps, the weak symbolism will prove lucky. 

[I still do not know when it will be enough.]

Medusa follows white strands of silk in a white space that exists of only that, white on white on white. He passes broken husks and collapsed cocoons. No matter where He looks, He knows that He will not find what He looks for. 

A new ball of web hangs. 

The monster wields the limp serpent- His drone, like a needle above a vein. 

The game continues. 

(I hope that someday We can fully accept the other’s hand. A conclusion with no regrets.)

Kokichi's eyes flutter open and shut. 

For a moment there is nothing more than a hazy post-sleep fog that most people don't even remember. Then, Kokichi's awareness slowly returns in the form of an ache in his neck. Another ache pops up in his left hand, his back, his wrists, and then his right side-

He twitches and reaches for his side, as if expecting to find that chunks are missing. It makes the hair on the back of his burning neck stand up. But nothing is actually wrong with Kokichi's body- besides his growing headache. Kokichi groans with something like disappointment clogging up his throat. His fingers are clean, and feel sticky-hot as if covered in blood.

The phantom pain passes in just a few more seconds. 

The boy huffs and opens his eyes to the site of a ruined classroom. He must have been laying face down on the floor. Of all the bullshit to happen. 

Kokichi is pretty sure t-

Kokichi bolts up and his body crashes back down to earth. Something seethes behind his skull, radiating outwards and shooting down his spine, like a bite full of venom. 

Fingernails trace down from head to spine. Like Kokichi is a flower to be plucked or something to be observed and devoured. He has a small choice or a large choice. It's made in less than a second of the less than a second worth of time it takes to realize; Kokichi is a parasite. This body was supposed to belong to someone else. 

He already knew that he was a parasite, but not like this. Not something like this. The small easy choice is the one that Kokichi leaps at-

Kokichi decides to lie. 

The toxic caress of memories too big for him gets shoved deep down into deja vu. The knowledge that the person supposed to be living this life, that he, is melted into a shell for Kokichi to puppet; so many things get patched over by repression and falsehood. 

The life Kokichi remembers living settles back into the forefront of his migraine. He comes back to Earth and finds himself in fetal position. A craving for someone to hold him floods out of his wildly beating heart. A flash of yellows like sunflower or daffodils. Metal. 

He wants DICE to pop out and explain that everything is a prank gone wrong. 

Just another lie to forget cruel truths. 

But Kokichi can recall getting pushed into a van. The mind's eye brings him images of other scared teens and a whole lot of bitching from their kidnappers. Kokichi had kept still and pushed down his instincts to flee or fight. 

Kokichi forces himself up on unsteady legs with arms afflicted with tremors. 

Someone had been a first timer, if the inconsistent soreness from haphazardly tired restraints is any indication. Pathetic. 

Unfortunate too, because no one in DICE walks around without a tracker or two in their clothing. Not after last year. DICE will definitely be picking Kokichi up soon. Even worse when Kokichi considers that his kidnappers are either the most stupid motherfuckers, or just unlucky. 

Yeah. 

Turning around reveals a beat up and over grown classroom. It's actually kind of atmospheric in that green post-apocalyptic way. The site of nature overtaking ruined skyscrapers has always filled Kokichi's heart with… not glee, but it's still cool to see. 

Sort of like crime dramas or documentaries. Interesting and horrible in real life. 

He has a lot of experience there. 

Kokichi pats down his clothing and the boy feels his quiet assurance die. The outfit looks like his heavily customized school uniform. But that's a lie.

It has none of his actual secret pockets, his belts don't hide that the sleeves and pants are removable, and as Kokichi's frantic patting continues; Kokichi knows that someone undressed him and then put him in a fake version of his clothing. Had he even been wearing this when they took him? Kokichi can't remember. 

It even has some of Kokichi's lock picking equipment. 

He tries to think about how they grabbed him and stares at not-his-pants when the memories are uniformly vague. How had they managed to drug him… 

A locker in the back of the classroom clatters. Bangs with someone groaning awake inside. 

“Hey?” Kokichi eventually says. “Somebody get shoved into a locker like a cheap movie bullying victim?”

He very carefully does not walk over to it. 

“I am not a victim of bullying! I do appear to be in a locker though,” says a young male voice. Whoever it is must be around Kokichi's age. Fits with what he remembers. 

Maybe it'll be that guy in the corner of the van. He'd worn a basic school uniform and had been staring empty at the ceiling with his hat on the floor. From what Kokichi had heard, the kid was the first person thrown in. Not that Kokichi had been able to focus very well. The inside of that van had been like hell. 

The locker groans along with the person inside of it. 

The human contents within sigh again, “I don't suppose that you would be willing to assist my way to freedom?”

“Seeing as I was kidnapped and probably drugged- and undressed before waking up here, I'm not going to be doing that!” Kokichi chirps. 

The person in the locker shuffles and shifts uncomfortably. 

“I… I was also kidnapped so I can understand,” the faceless voice tells him. Softer in pitch, and it makes Kokichi bristle. 

He doesn't need this kind of treatment from someone in a jammed locker. And God, what is this person even wearing to make those annoying clangs? Each movement is metal on metal. All Kokichi can smell is plants and decay from the strange school around him. 

“God, those sounds are annoying! Just stand back and I'll get you out,” Kokichi ends with a mutter. 

Evidently, they hear him loud and clear enough to obey. Heavy footsteps back up into the furthest end of the metal container and Kokichi approaches slowly. It makes his gut twist just to touch the thing, maybe from knowing that a group of fuckers kidnapped a bunch of teenagers and left them in an abandoned school. Ha-

Hands pull over one of the unused school desks and carefully place a small wrap-up lockpick case on top. 

Should be simple. 

Kokichi unrolls the thing and grabs a lockpick, happy to get to work. Lockers are never all that hard to break into, they can just be high risk and high reward at times. Not that Kokichi has ever stolen items that didn't get returned. 

And now he's the one stolen with no return. 

“Stop shuffling forwards and stay in the back until I open this thing!” Kokichi yells when his fellow kidnapee bangs the wall with a foot. Are those metal boots or something? 

“I cannot help but feel anxious. Please tell me that I'll be out of here soon,” says mister edgy steel toed boots. 

Kokichi slowly feels out the tumblers and listens. Whoever actually trapped a living person in a locker like this must be a sick puppy. 

Kokichi laughs, “Not much longer. I just gotta finish picking it. Hey, what's your name anyway?”

The locker clicks open. 

Pale hands pull at the still jammed metal, forgetting about names, and then Kokichi jerks back with the weight of his body. The locker door shrieks open and- wait a moment. 

“You picked this lock? Oh, right, I must introduce myself.”

Bright blue eyes cautiously take in the room as their owner quickly leaves the tiny prison. 

Kokichi stares. 

“My name is K1-B0, but I am also called Kiibo by my creator and others You may use either or!” says the robot. A robot. There is a robot in front of Kokichi's actual very own face, and wowee, is Kokichi happy to be kidnapped!

Kokichi stares. 

Kiibo glances around the room and back to Kokichi. 

“Are you-”

“Oh my gosh golly grape panta,” Kokichi blurts. “You are a robot! I am meeting a robot! An advanced humanoid robot and ohmygod, this is just like an anime!”

Kiibo seems to be becoming somewhat uncomfortable. Which sucks because Kokichi has so many questions and jokes to tell him. The most important questions, what would those be? Kokichi wheezes an excited horse laugh. 

“Okay. Okay. Do you have lasers? Like even cat toy lasers. I'd personally love to have built in cat toys,” Kokichi tells him. It's barely even a question.  
The robot looks concerned. Wow, he even has a mix of realistic and exaggerated expressions. That utterly settles things. Kokichi needs to bring him home to DICE for sure. With their powers combined, they could probably do anything!

“I do not have lasers. But my eyes can be used as flashlights!” Kiibo says. 

Disappointing, but lasers are unrealistic right now anyway. And the flashlight thing is very functional. 

Kokichi hums. 

“Can you punch people by shooting your fists at them? Can you fly? Oh, oh, how about stuff like artificial taste buds?!” Kokichi smiles brightly and brings his clenched hands to his chest. He can barely contain himself. 

But each question seems to make Kiibo annoyed with him. It seems like he can't hide his feelings very well. 

It makes something sink in Kokichi's gut. 

Of course… such a cool robot would be asked these questions at all times. It must be very tiring to hear someone babbling even in this sort of situation. Kokichi gets ready to backpedal from his excitement. He can just distract Kiibo, or make a joke, and disengage. 

Kiibo coughs, “I was actually made to be very human like and as such am incapable of those things. I am the Ultimate Robot for that reason, and I would prefer if you consider me to be like anyone else.”

“Wait, what?” Kokichi mutters. 

They look at one another. 

“What do you mean by ‘what’?” asks Kiibo. 

Kokichi backs up from the robot and bites his thumb nail. They're both Ultimates? There's no way that they're both Ultimates. What kind of Talent is just existing anyway? What kind of Ultimate Robot can't do anything but be human? Maybe Kokichi is misunderstanding and Kiibo means that he's the Ultimate Android. 

“So, do you have genitals and everything too? Anatomy and all.” Kokichi tilts his head. 

Kiibo gapes at him in objective shock and horror. Oh, okay. Abort. 

“Asking for a friend of mine cuz she's totally obsessed with the future of robots! Just keeps talking about ethics and sexbots all day long.”

Smooth. Just make up a really perverted friend and use that to solve everything. When in doubt, just lie a bunch until the doubt is totes gone! Except that Kokichi's lie just now was absolutely shit. Something about everything is making it hard for Kokichi to concentrate. It's not just the situation or Kiibo being a robot in a locker-box. 

Kokichi lets his brain and stomach itch at emptiness. 

Don't get comfortable, he reminds himself. Comfort is how you die to the cruelest lie and most painful truth. 

Metal feet walk forward and a finger points itself at Kokichi's face. 

“You have bitten your right thumbnail to the quick, and are in danger of bleeding,” Kiibo says. 

Slowly, Kokichi's tongue feels how there is indeed a barely still attached fingernail clenched between his teeth. A few seconds pass and his thumb starts throbbing in slight pain. Looking down at the nail reveals a tiny bit of blood seeping out of the corner. Kokichi only registered it all when Kiibo told him. 

Just this shouldn't be enough to put Kokichi into such a state. Nothing has made Kokichi space out like that in a while, too. He's gotten very good about that. 

Something must be wrong with Kokichi. 

“Oh well! This sort of thing can't be helped,” Kokichi says with his palms to the air. “I'm a masochistic pig after all! Just love the hurty ouchies!”

Kiibo raises his eyebrows, but Kokichi is far from done just yet. 

He laughs, “But that was a total lie. People who get off on their own pain are the lowest after sadists.”

Kokichi grins and turns around to inspect his lockpick. He considers spitting out the nail, but that'd be gross, so he lets it sit in his mouth and looks down at his anemic kit of thefty goodness. The lockpicks still look the same as his real ones but-

The excitement dies a horrible death. 

Kokichi has been kidnapped, and if Kiibo really is what he says he is, then their kidnappers have power. Kiibo would be legally seen as some sort of super secret high priority technology. A special key item. And Kokichi… 

Kokichi has let mindless activity and childish wonder control him. Usually, Kokichi is happy to stop thinking. He's happier being able to think at all. 

His hands grab a soft cloth and start rubbing. 

Kiibo steps a bit closer to watch Kokichi clean his gleaming and fractionized collection. The robot looks interested. Kokichi gnaws on his fingernail, appetite just as confused as it always is. A few more moments of polishing and checking reveals the kit as good to go. 

“I use these to steal from snooty rich folks,” Kokichi whispers. “You'd be shocked at how many people don't hide their valuables. Or lock up properly. “

His face stretches into a well worn grin as a laugh escapes him. 

The robot's reaction is priceless, and Kokichi's shoulders shake from mirth as he re-hides his tools. Kiibo seems to have put aside Kokichi's earlier conduct. 

They wait in the room and end up talking about Kiibo's professor-dad. 

Kokichi volunteers to peek out of the room first. 

Despite strong protests of danger from the only other person around, Kokichi goes as far as stepping outside entirely. There isn't anyone else in the empty halls. Said halls even look at least mildly abandoned. 

“I do not believe that you are supposed to move when kidnapped,” Kiibo says. His nervous eyes flicker from inch to inch. 

Kokichi stretches until his sore back feels better. 

“That's just for lost children who have parents!” he shouts into the corridor. 

The air around Kiibo smells of very faint oil. High grade materials not unlike that new car scent that Kokichi has witnessed only rarely. Kokichi wonders if the robotic boy even knows. If he knows how suspicious this all is, them waking up together. 

A surge of anxiety, because what if Kiibo is ignoring Kokichi's blunder because he heard how Kokichi fell to the floor? 

Kokichi has no idea if he'd said anything at that moment either. 

He could have fucked up. 

Kiibo coughs behind him, and Kokichi turns back to look at him. It's maybe just in his head. The pity, the pity that Kokichi is starting to spot. 

“You never introduced yourself to me,” the robot points out. 

Hands behind his head, Kokichi almost wants to say; ‘I don't have to give my personal information when you aren't even a person. So there you go!’

But instead Kokichi tells him this, “Oh worm?! My bad Keemoe!”

Kiibo sputters at Kokichi's innocent smile. 

“I do not appreciate such nicknames when we have only just met!” Kiibo firmly claims. 

Kokichi sees the unknowingly offered bait, and bites it. He just can't help it. 

“Sorry, but then does that mean that after we escape- we can give each other nicknames?! I'm thinking that you can be Kiibot and I can be Kimchi,” Kokichi blurts out with a cutesy expression. He's good at fast talking. 

“I-is that a dig at me being a robot?!” said robot exclaims. 

Kokichi's mouth falls open in dismay. A dig… at being a robot? Oh no. 

“No way! You're super cooler than any human, humans are mean, and boring!” Kokichi says. “I've always respected robots a lot. Even when they're the bad guys, it's not their fault.”

But Kiibo just frowns at him. The atmosphere of the hallway takes an oppressive tone. 

“I suppose that humans did kidnap us… but that is not all that there is to people! Furthermore, I dislike the idea that me being a robot makes me inherently different from humans on a personal level!”

Kokichi to stays silent as Kiibo talks about robophobia. Not different from humans on a personal level? But Kiibo is a robot. Even if he's a robot made to be as human as possible, his experiences are totally different from a human’s own. Kiibo can never be a human. 

“And besides that, human lives are very precious.”

No one can change what they are. They can only act in preventive measures. 

“My name is Ouma Kokichi, and you are boring,” Kokichi mutters. He'd actually thought that Kiibo would be fun to play with. Someone not human and safe to interact with would be ideal. 

Kokichi very carefully doesn't look anywhere near Kiibo. Pretends to not notice the confused noises that the robot makes. Just tunes it out. 

Doesn't feel guilty. 

Kiibo tries to say something, but Kokichi beats him to it, “So do robots have dicks or not? That friend I talked about earlier was a lie! Because I'm a liar.”

He smiles at the hurt in Kiibo's eyes and tries to not feel sick. Can he even take it back now? 

Two people start walking into their direction.

Kokichi pays them no mind, in favor of ruining his own efforts to have someone to talk to. It's fine if it's what Kokichi wants. He has DICE after all, so Kokichi has no reason to make fake friends with a boringly insecure machine. DICE will rip in here at anytime and take Kokichi back home. 

Even though all he does these days is stay in bed and refuse to eat anything but coffee or poisonous trash-

Akamatsu Kaede introduces herself as the Ultimate Pianist, but Kokichi's eyes are locked onto the boy standing at her side, stuck on the glimpses of gold under his hat. 

His stomach growls. 

Kiibo, stirred up from Kokichi, talks about seeing people in court for robophobia. 

Purple eyes trace the pale slice of neck where the detective’s shirt collar ends. Their eyes barely meet and Kokichi hides self disgusted feelings under layers of smiles. Saihara Shuichi. He smells like coffee and rain. 

“R-right,” Kaede says to Kiibo with a thumbs up. “How about you then?”

It takes a moment for Kokichi to realize that she's talking to him. His hands go up to his mouth and Kiibo frowns again. A thumbnail avoids Kokichi's hungry lips. But still, Kokichi doesn't want to tell them his Talent. He just doesn't associate with it anymore. Not after last year. 

Kokichi giggles, “I don't think I should tell you! Anyone here could be a liar or one of the kidnappers.”

Wait. Kokichi's eyes snap over towards Shuichi like a viper about to strike. The Ultimate Detective flinches. 

“Except for Saihara-chan,” Kokichi stares further. “I remember him tied up in the same vehicle as me. He was in a different outfit and his hat had fallen off, but I wasn't wearing this outfit until I woke up either.”

And that gets everyone's attention. 

Kaede gapes at Kokichi, “You remember being kidnapped that well?!”

But Kokichi is busy taking in Shuichi's eyes looking at him from under that cap. It feels so familiar. Kokichi wants to scream. 

He subtly backs up, but doesn't look away. 

“I sure do! It's not even a lie, I heard a lot of stuff being talked about,” Kokichi says. “Saihara-chan was the first person they grabbed up. I guess they must have had a list too.”

He spreads his arms and grins at them like he has all the answers. Shrugs. 

“But I was certainly drugged. So take even this with some salt. It could have been someone who looked like my beloved Saihara-chan.”

“Excuse me?” Shuichi says. Kokichi's heart skips a beat at the sound of confusion. 

The detective has such a nice voice, Kokichi could listen to it for years. Maybe even decades. 

“What is it, darling?” Kokichi snickers at Kaede's frantic glances. Kiibo's face is the best one though. 

Shuichi’s lips are parted slightly. Kokichi bends down and looks up under that annoying hat, making Shuichi's well proportioned hand jolt up to it. Absolutely cute. 

Kokichi's stomach protests again. 

“Sorry, but are you sure that we don't know one another from before all this?” the detective asks him. 

“Nope! I'd have remembered if I did. Although… “

Kokichi stands straight and watches the three before him stare with dread in their gazes. Kaede has a sort of defiance lit up in her eyes. She's certainly the ‘kind extrovert’ of their little group. When Kokichi stays quiet, she even speaks up. 

“I think it'd be best for everyone if you told us your thoughts, Ouma-kun,” Kaede says to him. 

Hearing her be so serious is almost painful for some reason. Kokichi doesn't like it at all. He wonders how performative Akamatsu Kaede's concern is, for a second, before he tells himself to stay rational. Kaede is just acting the way any human would in her situation. 

Kokichi stays silent for a moment. Face blank. He can't trust any of them. 

He can only trust DICE. 

Should only trust DICE. Kokichi learned that the hard way. 

“I forgot what I was going for, actually. Or maybe I'm lying again,” Kokichi says. “I am a liar after all!”

Laughing, Kokichi grins at the air in front of him. 

There. Kaede looks at him with quickly growing disgust. Maybe she doesn't even realize it. Maybe she's just frustrated with Kokichi's mannerisms. Kiibo seems to be reaching a similar conclusion as well, frowning in a way that is both smaller and more severe than before. People are funny like that. They hate ambiguous things with too much nuance. 

But Kokichi really did forget. 

It scares him. 

It scares him because Kokichi can't think right on an empty stomach. It must be worse than he assumed too. If Kokichi is losing track of his own thoughts, then that's horrifying. The only reason that Kokichi had left DICE headquarters was to finally give into his needs. Left out the back window with instinctive hope and starvation begging for just a morsel. His stomach has learned to expect nothing more by now. DICE would still find out, of course, because everyone knows everyone. Word would get back that their fallen leader had come knocking. 

Still, eating the food kept at DICE would make them realize sooner. That Kokichi had given in again. 

It's been years and years since Kokichi had last eaten the right amount of food. A year since his fast began. Kokichi should be used to working on empty. The only thing he can think of is that he's been out much longer than a few days. Soon, the feeling of his stomach attacking itself will come back. 

DICE is all that Kokichi can trust, and DICE is all that can trust Kokichi, but there's no way that he can tell anyone this. 

So instead he poisons the well. 

He doesn't want the three people in front of him to think that he's a monster. Kokichi would rather them distrust him for being an ambiguous asshole. Doesn't want them to stay around him with their tempting scents and alluring flesh. Kokichi tries so hard to not be a monster. Tries as hard as possible to never eat. To be a person. 

Words slip out of his mouth with both too much and too little filter. 

More people show up, all of them pleasant smelling and so very good looking. Each one gets annoyed with Kokichi even when he doesn't really do anything, and it makes him happy, because Kokichi wants them to see him as a brat and nothing else. 

He decides on what he does and doesn't want. 

Doesn't want to see the horror etched into their death masks- the last expression of a human being murdered. 

Neither DICE nor his body will let Kokichi starve. So he locks himself in his bedroom coffin and gnaws at himself like a trapped animal- because his family needs at least his brain in a world unforgiving. Even though he has made sure that they don't. It's Kokichi's biggest mistake, that he made them love him as more than just their leader. 

The look on his family's faces when they find him binging on store bought junk or fruit or sandwiches-

Infinitely better than giving into his parasitic body. 

Shuichi’s eyes keep wandering over to him. They're vivid and bright under that somehow despicable hat. Kokichi zeroes in. He looks back to Kiibo's antenna hair and tries to ignore how his own traitor eyes lingered on Kaede's thighs. 

Saliva pools and he can't. Kokichi would rather die. Kokichi is so hungry. 

Because Kokichi is a monster, even if he's forced his body to become frail and weak, despite how hard he tries to kill every inherently terrible and abominable thing in himself; his appearance remains a predatory deception that mocks him via reflection. A taunt. A cruelty. The lie that lets Kokichi walk among actual people. 

Kokichi looks at Gonta and catches himself drooling like an animal. He wishes that Tenko would cover up her vulnerable stomach. Smells old death on Maki's hands, but it just makes his stomach growl. 

He's disgusting and disgusted and fears that the Ultimate Detective can already tell. 

But Kokichi keeps laughing and following the group around, until they end up in the gym, familiar as all school gymnasiums are. 

Hates himself even more when yet another bear pops out and announces a killing game. 

Everyone is so painfully human in their reactions, even Kiibo. But not Kokichi, not him. And the parent bear calling itself Monokuma must know after all. It looks at him and his stone cold pit of a void called stomach and makes witty lines, that only worthless monsters understand. Kokichi is those things. 

Monokuma must have known after all. 

Someone betrayed him again. 

DICE… DICE won't take him home. 

He walks to his room in a daze and prays that no one follows him. Ignores how some call after him with worry. The willpower to make them dislike him, it's been stolen from Kokichi's heart. 

The room is too empty. It's been personalized to fit him. 

A killing game. 

Near the end, ‘but we only have the most basic and normal selection of food at this Academy!’ the bear had said. 

Staring straight at Kokichi with one red eye and a leer. 

No one had paid attention to that bit, Kokichi remembers. Everyone is a normal person who belongs anywhere else and gives little shits about basic diets. The killing game is far more dire. Except for Kokichi. 

Kokichi is a liar by design. 

There's one single person for whom the killing game is intertwined irreversibly with meals. Him, because Kokichi is-

Kokichi is a ghoul.


	2. Marinade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi tries to have one good day full of pretending to be someone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deadlock 
> 
> In concurrent computing, a deadlock is a state in which each member of a group is waiting for some other member to take action, such as sending a message or more commonly releasing a lock. Deadlock is a common problem in multiprocessing systems, parallel computing, and distributed systems, where software and hardware locks are used to handle shared resources and implement process synchronization.
> 
> In an operating system, a deadlock occurs when a process or thread enters a waiting state because a requested system resource is held by another waiting process, which in turn is waiting for another resource held by another waiting process. If a process is unable to change its state indefinitely because the resources request ested by it are being used by another waiting process, then the system is said to be in a deadlock.
> 
> In a communi cations system, dead locks occur mainly due to lost or corrupt signals rather than res ou rces rce contention.
> 
> Ā̸̘̈ ̸̰̂͋l̷͕͂͋i̶̭͛v̴̞̲̊̀ë̴͈́͜l̶̲͇̐̌y̵̙̎̈́ ̸̻̱͗c̷̥̙̉k̶̲͌͑ ̴̛̗̼͝ị̶̈́͐s̶̩̓̀ ̴̣̮̊̔s̸̺̭͂i̷̱͂m̵̰̕i̴͍̕l̸͙̱̾̈́a̸͚̐̃r̷̤̽ ̸̬͌ͅť̴ͅo̴̢͈͂ ̵̞̰̔̅ȃ̷̫̙͐ ̴̮̘͆d̷̞͌ȇ̸̹͖͠g̸̻̊̂r̸̿͠ͅe̶̫̓ê̵̗ ̵͇̪̕a̴̛̗̼͌d̸̩̈́̌l̴̫͑͜õ̴̼̌c̸̤̓͘k̴̮͔̄̎,̵̼̜̓ ̸̭̙̐e̵̞͊ẍ̷̜͔c̸̭̳͛ẽ̶̡̬͋p̶̯͋̏t̸̡̝̍ ̶̣̫̅̓t̵͇̽̈h̶̞̻̔̎a̸͎̝̋̈t̸͙͛͋ ̸̱̽ṫ̴̢̥ḣ̴͎e̶̳͑̍ ̷̢̯̈́ṣ̸͒͝t̵̟̥͒a̴̯̿̚ẗ̷͓̫e̴͔̒s̵͔̖̉ ̶̖̾̕o̶̢͖̎f̷̟̈́̆ ̶̧̑͊t̴͚̏h̷̦̄̚e̴̬̥͆ ̵̩͌p̶̱͒r̴̝̙̔õ̷͕c̵̮͘͜e̷͙͓͌s̶͖̠͆͛s̵͙̟̾̔e̸̯̱̎s̷̹͇̒ ̷͕̉̕͜į̵͌n̸̦͂ṽ̶̗o̶̰͑l̸̻̱̈́v̵̯͆̕e̷̱̼̐d̶̫̚ ̷͇̓i̶̺̽ͅn̵̦̋ ̴̞͂t̵̽͛͜h̶͙̐͝e̶̝̾ ̵̜͍̿͆ ̸̖̃l̵͗͜i̶̝̇v̴̯̤̿e̸̘͖̓̓l̶̨̂͘o̸͉̗͌c̶̜̜̚k̸̗͓̓͘ ̸̬̪̈́͋ć̴̹̰o̸͓̦͐ņ̶̣͗̚ș̴̮̈́̈́t̶̛͕̬̕r̷̪u̴̦̯͂c̶͉͘̕ẗ̵̘́̍i̷̧̇o̷͔͐͐n̵̛̠͐ͅ ̵̱̿r̶͕̘̿ǘ̸̗ĉ̷̪t̴̨̲͠i̶̟̿ͅo̸͕͒͌n̵̛̤͋ ̶̦a̵̲̅̿n̴̩̊t̴̠l̷̯̥̅͛y̶̮̤͊̉ ̵̟̱̐c̸̜h̵̦̐͝ͅå̶̢̦̃n̴͓̒͝ǧ̴̦͇e̵̘͋ ̶̫͉̅͋w̵̗͘i̸͎͌ṫ̵̠̕h̵̡̭͘ ̵͖͔̆r̸̝͘ẻ̷̟́g̷͍̅a̸̰͒̑ř̶̟͒d̵̞͌͐ͅ ̵̗͈̽͊t̸̙o̷͇̤͛̍ ̵̪̓̕o̵̠͝n̶̗͔̐e̷̩̟̓ ̴͕̤̿͝a̴͚̒n̵̻͍̕o̷͍̥̊͑t̸͕̕͘h̷̹̀ȇ̶͎̪r̶̛̰̥͂,̴̤͋̅ ̴̛͉̓n̷̟̏o̴͈̥̓n̵̨̲͆ẻ̴͉ ̷̟p̴͕̻͂r̵̮̊̈o̷̺̔͂ğ̸̦̉ṟ̸̤͂è̸̙̘s̷̱͖̈́s̷̩̹͝i̸̧̊̂n̸͍g̷͌͑͜.̵̝̏  
> ̶̼͉̉

Kokichi stares at his door from where he lingers on the bed. It's almost time to get up and get out. It's almost time to get dressed and show up fashionably late, an annoying smile on his face that doesn't fit with being stuck in a killing game at all. Kokichi will act happy and entertained by everything around him. Words praising the killing game will spill from his lips, eventually. 

His stomach stabs itself again. A reminder of emptiness. 

Stumbling over to the bathroom, just as hotel advertisement ready as the rest of his lodgings, Kokichi uses his unsteady feet until cold tile stings them. Arms soon brace themselves against the sink. A sweaty and pale face stares into Kokichi's eyes. He feels sick. He feels horrible and useless and-

It's been a bit of time since Kokichi did this. Since he resorted to this method of avoidance. 

It always makes people cry and beg for him to stop, that Kokoro wouldn't want him to do this to himself. To everyone. But Kokichi has already done what he swore would never happen. Kindness of any sort is something that belongs to people. Prevention is the only option, life isn't fair. 

Anything filling his stomach up is better than nothing. 

DICE isn't here to stop Kokichi.

He reaches out for the blurred shapes of silver faucet handles and watches the water start to pour out. It's fast, water hissing into a plain porcelain sink with a pressure that Kokichi hasn't seen in a while. He and DICE live in a semi abandoned ward in a semi abandoned apartment building, after all. 

Black-red eyes travel from handle to hand to arm. Kokichi brings his face closer. 

Pale and death tinged flesh, soft under arm, small irregularities marking previous and still healing wounds. He used to heal so much quicker. Now Kokichi's body is almost like that of a human. 

Kokichi opens his mouth and bites down on himself. Blood gushes. Pitiful. 

“Gech-” Kokichi gags. 

Disgusting and rancid like the rest of him. 

Gagging more, Kokichi chews up his own horrible flesh and slowly swallows. His throat clenches but the stomach that has spent months waiting for real sustenance- it welcomes anything gladly. Sounds of panting fill up the bathroom, while teeth continue to mash tissue into something swallowable. 

Blood flows down to the once spotless floor in sluggish rivers. As if Kokichi's body didn't expect his chosen action. 

The face and body reflected by the mirror are far too degraded. No wonder why not a single person actually raised their hands, or even their voice either. He's grown so pale and visibly weak looking, just unhealthy, and it's obvious that he'd fall over due to a stiff breeze. Kokichi wishes he could get rid of the mirror here like he did the ones in his real bedroom and bathroom. But he can't, so he stares at frail skin and protruding bones. Months have gone by without a single glimpse of himself. 

Kokichi wishes that that angry Tenko girl would actually say something more than indirectly rude to him. Maybe then he wouldn't be doubting his chances at making people hate his pathetic face. 

How awful. 

But this is what Kokichi wants. 

Thirty minutes is how long it takes for the bleeding to slow enough for his needs, but Kokichi's stomach quiets itself right away. Meat setting in, a sense of relief washes over Kokichi's mind. He wraps the wound with shredded cloth and gets dressed. Washes his face with shaking hands and tries to smile. He'll be so awful that no one will ever notice. Kokichi will be everyone's perfect target for any frustrated feeling, and they'll never willingly get close to him. 

Lessening temptation is the only thing that Kokichi can do right now. 

Prevent, prevent, prevent. 

Under absolutely zero circumstances can eating be an option. It's a rule from even before Kokichi woke up here. Kokichi just can't justify breaking it anymore. 

Monokuma's fucked up school doesn't have any little shop or apartment with friendly ghouls to hand out food under Kokichi's orders. There isn't a single speck of DICE's carefully designed support system. Their painstakingly grown slice of peace and coexistence isn't real, not here. So long as Kokichi is here, all of that hard work and all of his mistakes exist only as a bubble inside of his head. Only in the dents and scars that prolonged starvation allow to exist. 

Ant bites. 

Ants swarming the corpse of a hornet. 

Kokichi wants to skip breakfast and stay inside of his room. 

This isn't his room though, so he slips on his shoes after checking on his bite sized mistake for bleeding. 

White cloth remains as so. 

It almost makes Kokichi wish that someone would notice, but the only trustworthy existences that Kokichi knows are far away from him. A sigh drags its way out from Kokichi's freshly brushed mouth. He walks past too empty space and pauses at his doorway. Looking back, the room given to him really does have the kind of look that Kokichi would have given it. It lacks the candy wrappers, and other trash, that he'd just let fall to floor- but it really looks like his. 

Kokichi sneers at the disturbing feeling of nostalgia in his veins. He grabs the handle to his door and pushes forward. 

Two startled human beings flinch back, Akamatsu Kaede's hand frozen in front of her and ready to knock on Kokichi's door. 

“Ah, good timing Ouma-kun!” the pianist says. Her pink lips become a cautious smile. 

Blinking doesn't clear Kokichi's vision of her or the Ultimate Detective behind her. It takes just a moment for burning frustration to rear up inside of Kokichi's chest. What the fuck are they doing here? 

Kaede continues speaking, “We were just going to check in on you, to see if you wanted breakfast.”

She says it almost like a question and Kokichi hates that stupid mirror even more. He'd rather not know why the girl is worried about him eating. 

A thought crosses Kokichi's mind. 

If Kaede is the type that Kokichi suspects her to be, then she'll try to ‘help him’. 

“Why, that's so sweet of you!” Kokichi verbally sneers. “To think that Akamatsu-chan is worried about my health.”

He smiles and ignores those golden eyes staring at him from behind the blonde girl's back. Keeps his own eyes on that one stubborn hair on Kaede's head. Don't look at people like they're nothing but meat walking around. Don't do that. 

Kaede smiles back at Kokichi with a hint of something nervous in her gaze. A hint of strawberry wafts over to Kokichi's nose. 

“It's not a problem at all, Ouma-kun. Everyone just has to look out for one another,” she says. 

The detective walks closer and brings the scent of fresh roasted coffee with him. 

Kokichi swallows down a rush of spit. 

“Let's just go to the cafeteria!” he says. It's fast and messy in how transparent Kokichi feels, or at least he thinks that, but it lets him walk away and in front of the two people that tried. Something like wanting him to interact with everyone, probably? They want to help him, maybe. It's sickening. Kokichi will just have to be even worse than his initial plan. He'll have to make them want him to die. 

They don't actually care about him, after all. 

‘Oh look, it's someone in need and rough shape! Oh look, we should help him. Aren't we such good people?’

Kokichi keeps walking and walking. 

Being that way is a mistake, and someday Akamatsu Kaede will learn that, and regret it. She'll regret it just like Kokichi does. She'll get to stare down at a body and know that everything is because of her blindly bleeding heart. 

Until then, Kokichi makes his way down to the dining hall in a pleased silence. There's a split second of wondering why the dorm rooms are actually in the school, but where the hell else would they be? Maybe he should have taken a second bite out of his arm. Or a deeper one. It's not as if Kokichi has even been to a real school since he was a child. 

Kaede and Shuichi murmur behind him. 

Maybe he's mistaking the layout as something similar to an anime school. That's far more likely than anything else. 

Kokichi glares up at the dining hall, swallows down spit, and turns to smile at the two humans behind him. He's going to eat everything that Kirumi has made for him and he's going to like it. Then Kokichi will do whatever and force his stupid monster body to pass it through. He just can't let anyone see him puke up the food, if it comes to that. He hasn't done that in a while either. 

Walking through the threshold feels like pulling his own nails out again. 

Everyone just eyes Kokichi a little. They watch him go over to sit down next to Kiibo and then watch the way that the robot squirms. Conversation doesn't exactly stop, but Kokichi can feel the way it lulls even more once he settles, and more when perfect Ultimate Maid girl sets down a plate of traditional breakfast. There's even natto. Miso soup with tofu, fish and rice- it's all so gorgeous too. Kokichi barely recalls asking for a traditional meal plan. 

He can't actually remember Kirumi offering to make everyone food either. Probably because he ran away… 

It's all going to taste like shit, so who cares.

Kokichi picks up his chopsticks and prepares himself. A small piece of fish easily flakes off into the hold of two bamboo chopsticks. Kokichi tries to remember eating protocol. 

Shuichi sits down next to him and Kokichi freezes, because why is the Detective sitting with him instead of Kaede? Anyone else would be better. Quickly glancing around the table reveals that Kaede is equally shocked by her golden eyed friend. 

“Hello there, mister Shumai. What do you want?” Kokichi asks. 

Something in Kokichi's brain stops and then restarts. Shumai? Where exactly did that come from, and why the hell did Kokichi do something as asinine as nickname a person after food? He's never done something like that in recent memory. Hasn't done that since Kokichi's parents...

Kokichi puts the fish into his mouth and chews carefully, quickly swallowing. 

His throat hates him. 

A second later and the scent of actual coffee, in a mug brought over by the maid, joins that of Kokichi's new neighbor. Kirumi puts a plate of pancakes in front of Shuichi's body too. 

“I just got hungry and sat down. Should I move?” Shuichi shifts and gently cuts up a small chunk of pancake.

The other teen obviously has no desire to move. 

Kokichi carefully looks at the pancakes instead of the way the detective's strong, yet delicate, fingers hold western cutlery. The contrast of silver metal and fair skin isn't alluring at all. Those pancakes with that light dusting of powdered sugar are delicious. Pale gol- yellow slices of banana are great. Delicious looking. 

Kokichi grabs his glass of grape panta and takes a sip, smiling, “Nope! Shumai is just fine in my books.”

Grape soda tastes the way that cheap one dollar rubbing alcohol smells and burns his tongue like acid. He drinks a bigger sip after letting it all settle into cursed taste buds. Kokichi thinks it's all psychosomatic, but the soda leaves a sparking film in his mouth anyway. He makes the obligatory ‘ah’ noise. 

Shuichi smiles at him with a tinge of worry. It makes Kokichi smile back and then return to his food. 

Humans don't mechanically devour everything on their plates. They usually cycle between options. 

It can be hard to figure out how to eat properly when you aren't actually a person, to consume food naturally. It doesn't look good, it doesn't taste good, and eating anything but human flesh or coffee is poisonous to a ghoul. And water. Water is good too. Kokichi has heard that certain types of tea are passable, or pure cocoa plant stuff if you live in South America. Some ghouls can stomach pork, through what must be a mutation, according to old rumors. 

It'll still starve you though, just be less shit than the average melon bread. What a shame that Kokichi isn't one of those luckier ghouls. He's just bog standard. 

“Hey,” comes the calming voice of Amami Rantaro. “You okay?”

Kokichi looks down at his meal and makes a small appreciative noise. 

“Don't you worry that fluffy and delicate avocado head, Amami-chan!” Kokichi says with eyes crinkling from a fake grin. 

He decides to work his way through it the way that Kokoro would. Like always. Kokichi usually sticks to junk food and vending machine trash, unless he gets the urge to force himself to cook again, or when he sneaks off to buy more trash and grabs some cheap shit from a convenience store. Expired riceballs with suspicious contents are a staple result of those trips. 

Ghouls are supposed to fake chewing and swallow quickly to avoid puking, or making a face. Kokichi does not do that. He chews and chews and then swallows it all down. 

Because that's what real people do. 

Looking back up with an even faker grin, “I'm just wondering how to tell Toujou-chan that I dislike natto after all!”

Kokichi remembers that she ate her soups first. Delicate stomach. 

Fearing the starvation of her brother didn't stop when a bunch of ghoul kids started pooling unused food money with her. Taking odd jobs and stealing, because DICE was and still is a family. Should be, should have been… 

Pale hands with thin skin pick up a spoon, and Kokichi wishes that the lighting would stop being so good. He idly inches the natto over towards Kiibo's space. 

He keeps an ear on conversation and eats. 

“Ha! As fucking if a genius like me will end up getting murdered by you stupid abortions!” the vulgar Iruma Miu boasts. She goes on to offer Kiibo a bomb dick. That might actually serve as a grenade in tough situations. 

“Iruma-san, ” mutters the robot at Kokichi's left side. “I don't think that I would want you to provide such a… such an upgrade.”

Miu says something spicyish and it makes people look away from her. The smell of her is infused with sour hints of shame and Kokichi silences her with a, “Stop saying you wish we'd never been born, you vapid cockslut.”

“I didn't mean it th-that way! You stupid Shota!” Miu yells at him as she cringes back. 

The inventor whimpers, and oh, she seriously likes that a bit. Too bad, Kokichi is just not in the mood to try and figure out how to navigate Iruma Miu. 

He goes back to his food. 

Miso? Oily piss and clogs of curdled puss called tofu. The fish is even worse, and with the rice it all reminds Kokichi of the time he took a bite of rotting homeless man. There had been a tiny sunken in patch with maggots inside. Rice doesn't move though. Thanks for being not as shit as you could be, Kokichi thinks. 

Kokichi swallows another demure bite of gasoline infused fish skin. The natto is once more nudged. 

At least this meal isn't going to suddenly wake up and make him cry like the not-actually-dead homeless man did. Tama was such a strange guy. Probably perpetually high, ‘til the day he kicked it for real. An obvious thing from the moment Tama shrugged off his bitten up leg and told Kokichi to stop crying. 

Kokichi remembers him fondly though, maggoty leg and all, because Tama was the first adult to have no intention of using a freshly homeless eight year old ghoul.

Tama was just Tama. 

Kokichi pushes his natto over to Kiibo's empty space again. This time, the knock off of Astro Boy and Raiden gives him a confused look. Kokichi forces out his most annoying laugh, and it sounds like Kokichi hasn't used it in a while. 

Shuichi taps Kokichi's shoulder, and the purple haired ghoul is happy to not jump from it. He looks over at the hat covered face. 

“What's up?” Kokichi asks. 

Gold darts from Kokichi's face to the small dish of natto, “If you really dislike those… then I don't mind eating them.”

Another lull in conversation and Kokichi politely shoves the fermented beans into Shuichi's face. Not actually his face. 

Kokichi thanks the other boy happily and tries to not see Shuichi smile back. 

His lips open to take another drink of spiteful purple fizz with an equal amount of spite. The grossness is in your mind, Kokichi tells himself, it's all faked and you just need to eat more. Like a mantra, he thinks about all the food wrappers on his bedroom floor. Kokichi eats real food for real people all the time. He's used to it. 

Shuichi sets aside the rest of his pancakes and starts to eat the bowl of natto with gusto. 

Kokichi's stomach grumbles hatefully.

“Uh,” the astronaut not far down from them says. “I actually hate that stuff too, totally get why you'd want to give it to another person!”

Shuichi’s eyes dart from Kokichi to Kaito. He slowly chews more yucky slimy bean. It can't possibly go with his pancakes. 

Kokichi keeps in mind how bloodshot his eyes must be and says, “I'll be sure to send allllll my natto your way from now on.”

Kaito grimaces. It's funny enough to make Kokichi giggle. 

“I'll even make some for you! Believe it or not, but I'm a pretty great cook too!” Kokichi chirps. 

Remember how they used to love eating this kind of food and your blind cooking. They used to love you before you fucked it all up and couldn't lie about being a person anymore. Your humans were safe and loved you, until you ruined it. 

Stop reminding me of when I was worthwhile, Kokichi mentally hisses. 

Kaito tries to change the subject and conversation picks up again. 

Fish now, Kokichi knows. He should pick up some fish and eat it. Even when it's utterly disgusting. The wrong one here is only Kokichi's body and him. He uses his chopsticks to eat more of that plain rice instead. It's better with no flavors. 

Kokichi turns and laughs at Kaito's bad Mars Rover joke. Only after exposing how dumb it is, though. 

Another bite of fish reaches Kokichi's mouth, gets mashed up by pearly whites, and he swallows as quickly as possible too. 

Kirumi sets down a cup of tea in front of everyone, saying that it's for digestion. Kokichi swears that people say miso soup does that. Did someone ask for tea? Kokichi… Kokichi hasn't actually been listening, he realizes. 

He only noticed Kaito's joke because Kaito is stupid. 

The ghoul has been trying to ignore everyone. For a reason, on purpose, because-

“I'll pass on tea cuz I hate it and prefer coffee,” he says. He hears Shuichi make a noise of agreement next to him. Glancing over reveals Shuichi holding his coffee as if to save it from the invading tea nation. 

His fingers would taste amazing. 

Eat his eyes. 

Kokichi stands up, “Anyway! I want to check out the school now. Tata, my dears.”

At a lazy walk speed, Kokichi runs away from his problems and to the nearest bathroom that he can find. It's too familiar even though no one is like DICE. Sitting down and zoning out while eating with everyone, it feels natural even now. Kokichi hates it. How fucking dare he do something like get comfortable here? How could Kokichi just allow himself to-

All those smells that deteriorated olfactory organs can barely sense, and Kokichi still can't last a day. 

Spotting the bathrooms, Kokichi ducks into the men's room and stomps into the biggest stall. Boring tiles and boring white porcelain. If Kokichi had designed the place then there would be at least blue ocean designs. At least it's cleanish. 

A chill runs through the ghoul's body. 

Kokichi glares down into the plain toilet bowl and stubbornly refuses to retch into it- rubbing his throat and stomach instead. 

“Pass, just pass, come on…” he murmurs. 

He should have just demanded junk food or something room temperature. An Ultimate Maid like Kirumi could have managed it, and Kokichi wouldn't have to deal with hot poison starting to cramp his stomach. 

For a moment, the steady ache lessens, and Kokichi wonders if his body has finally decided to get with the program. 

He sighs but tucks his hair back just in case. 

Then a series of stabs ensues inside of Kokichi's guts. He considers giving up immediately, not being willing to deal with this kind of weakness. But thoughts of simple logic flow as Kokichi starts to bring his fingers to his mouth. If Kokichi makes himself throw up the food, then he'll puke up the chunk of his arm too, and he'll just be even worse. Pale fingers fall back to toilet rim. Kokichi squeezes his eyes and mouth shut. 

Kokichi's mouth fills with saliva for reasons other than hunger, as the rest his body punishes him for being alive. 

He squirms on his knees and clenches at his hair with a fist. 

Nothing yet, but nothing is just a prelude to something. Kokichi pulls his hair back and lets a steady stream of drool pour into clear toilet water. His head hurts. His everything is suddenly alive with aches and pains. All because Kokichi is a dirty and filthy imitation of a person. One made half-heartedly and with cruelty in mind. Murder is all that a ghoul is good for anyway. So, don't be a ghoul and suffer trying to make up for being a monster. 

But Kokichi refuses to cry here. He's not the one in danger. 

Angry intestines alight themselves in a flurry of knife wounds. Kokichi cringes in on himself and tries to remember the way that it feels when someone pats him on the head. Yeah, she'd always do that before Kokichi-

She… 

Kokichi blinks at boringly textured stall walls and tries to remember the name of the girl. That girl, woman really, her mask with overly pronounced lips and her mannerisms motherly. The rim of the toilet swims in and out if Kokichi's vision. She's always coming to his room and trying to get ‘real food’ into Kokichi's body. Even after Kokichi did that horrible thing, she and the rest of his family still… they still love him. 

So where exactly is DICE now? 

He looks around and finds himself tucked into the corner, and trying to move makes him feel dizzy, but instinctively moving into a sad ball of hurt isn't important. Kokoro's name and code name come easy. But everyone else is just missing. 

Kokoro, San, Jeopardy, Kazu; Kokichi tries to remember more but his headache just gets worse.

Shaking limbs pull Kokichi up from his corner and away from the ringing in his ears. He clutches his sick stomach and tries to ignore the tightness of his throat. The danger of puking seems to have passed. 

Kokichi leaves the stall and finds Shuichi waiting for him at the sinks. 

Straight away does Kokichi see how Shuichi is carefully positioned. Close enough to the door to grab Kokichi, but far away enough to not be threatening to the average person. It's something that Kokichi should have expected and almost has. Just not so quickly. 

“So you were here after all,” the detective says to himself. 

A hand is holding the detective's ever present hat at his side, that's interesting. Pale fingers busy themselves with black fabric. The boy's silhouette stands out against the bright white restroom tiles. 

“To think that our only civil service person is a pervy creep,” Kokichi drones, face slack and empty. He silently takes in the boy's slight twitch. 

Shuichi sighs, “We all got worried. No one has seen you for almost an hour.”

Fuck. Kokichi gasps as if startled and jumps around to look at the stall he just left. He slowly steps back to it and then makes noises of deep concentration. The ghoul’s fingers dig into the doorframe as he fights back a grimace. 

“Yep, it's as I thought!” Kokichi says. “This here stall is actually a time machine! I must have gotten lost.”

Shuichi’s exposed eyes stare right into Kokichi's everything. It's strange how Kokichi doesn't actually feel judged by it, though the stare makes him feel nervous as Shuichi's scent starts to fill the room with ozone. Even what must be a heavy jacket and thick cloth can't hide how good he smells. 

Kokichi wonders what sort of blend the Ultimate Detective smells like. 

“I doubt that,” Shuichi says with a small smile. 

Kokichi laughs and nods his head. 

“So, did you throw up or not? Ouma-kun?”

And tiny alarm bells sound off inside of Kokichi's throbbing skull. Shuichi has been a very polite person up until now, up until just now, with golden eyes gleaming and looking all over at Kokichi-in-the-doorway. Kokichi who cannot run unless he wants to risk being caught. 

Kokichi in a killing game, with the detective, at the men's restroom. His smile stretches into something painful as his heart beats far too fast. 

“Are you going to kill me? Even though all your ‘friends’ talked such big game?” Kokichi questions with quiet murmurs. 

He has more that he wants to say but-

Shuichi blanches and gapes at Kokichi's accusations. He makes some ‘uhms’ and ‘ahs’, stepping back in a way that suggests honest confusion and shock. The Detective's stupid hat twitches up towards its owner's head. Ultimately, it stays at his side. Interesting. 

So the hat is some kind of crutch after all. 

Shuichi gulps, “No! K- I don't want to kill you at all! I'm not going to murder anyone, I just wanted to… Ouma-kun?”

Kokichi wants Shuichi and everyone else to stay away from him. If Shuichi isn't going to kill him, then Kokichi knows how to make him at least want to. 

The best way to make people give up on you is to burn them. 

He's not as fast as he used to be. Just a weakling comparable to a human in ways that don't count the way that Kokichi wishes they did, but Kokichi still manages to snatch the ugly boring hat out of Shuichi's ugly boring hand. Their eyes meet and it hurts. 

“Ouma-kun, please,” Shuichi mutters. 

Eyebrows pushed together and mouth frowning. 

Kokichi doesn't even know Saihara Shuichi, but seeing the worry and dismay in his eyes is painful.  
(Right?) 

The hat gets thrown into a corner as Kokichi runs away from the warm body that he almost pressed himself into. A hand grasps onto his clothing, Shuichi's grip being shockingly strong, but Kokichi still struggles to break free. He twists and gives strong pushes paired with sharp nudges, but still can't even get away, can't get away from some unfit Detective Conan mimic. 

Shuichi’s body struggles with him. 

“Your hat is stupid and I wish I'd been able to shove it down a shit covered toilet, ” Kokichi grunts. “What the fuck do you even want?!”

“To help you!” Shuichi says. 

Kokichi laughs. He can't help but laugh instead of groan or sob, because it's far too hilarious to try and comprehend this as help. Some stupidly alluring stranger is trying to help him. By pinning Kokichi up like a fun specimen, watching him struggle, and asking if Kokichi has emptied out the malfunction from his stomach. Each second has Shuichi reel in Kokichi as if he's the prey here.

Maybe that's not the entirety of what's going on though. Kokichi simply isn't capable of caring. 

“You don't want to help me at all! You just want to look good by helping the sick kid!” Kokichi shouts. 

He grunts more, “All of you are so fucking disgusting and blind!”

But that's a lie in half. The disgusting one is Kokichi and his desperate panting. 

He pushes against Shuichi's chest again and-

Shuichi smells good. Closer, and Kokichi can nearly taste it already. Under coffee and rain is something sweet, oddly sweet, like how Kokichi wishes all his junk food would taste. Like he's been told it all should be. Shuichi's skin looks soft and cleaner than Kokichi thought people could actually be in any given situation. Especially since Kokichi can smell the faint presence of sweat. 

Kokichi wants. 

Pale yet so very lovely skin stretches as Shuichi frowns deep, eyes and brain obviously working away to counter each and every attempt that Kokichi makes to escape.

“I do want to help you, all I ever wanted was to help,” the human says. 

It seems like something a bit personal and Kokichi doesn't understand. The throbbing in his skull, all over ringing grey matter, peaks upwards for a moment. 

He twitches in the Detective's hold. Kokichi kicks his feet down onto Shuichi's shoes, his toes, but the boy doesn't so much as flinch from it. The ghoul raises his left fist and brings it down on Shuichi. It hits his back and makes him move for once. Kokichi repeats this over and over anywhere that he can. 

They crash further together and Kokichi's legs give out. 

“Hhaa- hhhh…. Aaa?” Kokichi breathes. 

It feels familiar. Why is it so nostalgic for a stranger to hold him this way? It's warm in Shuichi's hold, half in his arms and lap as they lower down.

The Detective looks down at him with something like love in his eyes 

Purple eyes shut.

“I hate you so much, Saihara,” some weak willed cretin says. But his body falls near limp in Shuichi's embrace. 

“Why? Ouma-kun,” flows the breathy voice of the young man holding him. “You may think that I have bad intentions, but I don't. No one here really does.”

Kokichi could bite him if he wanted. Kokichi could bite down and into unsuspecting human flesh for the first real time in a year, not just chilled anonymous slices of suiciders eaten due to weakness and flavored with a burning self hatred. It would be even warmer than Shuichi's body heat. Kokichi could, if he wanted to, dip his thin fingers into wet hot ocular cavities and scoop up those beautiful eyes. The same way he's been trying not to want to. 

Laughing ends up sounding more like a rasping cough. 

“You all make me want to eat!” Kokichi admits with a hiss. He can hear Shuichi make a sound of confusion. The ghoul wonders which part is most odd in Shuichi's mind. 

Maybe, if he bit down, Kokichi would go into a frenzy. Each cell in his atrophied body might come alive again. Maybe Shuichi would be able to push Kokichi away at the sight of black and red- at the undeniable fact that Kokichi is a beast in human shaped skin. 

He would run to tell everyone like a good detective should. Warn everyone. 

And it's a shame that Shuichi isn't an Ultimate Ghoul Investigator instead of an Ultimate Detective. Then the boy would have the training and weaponry to kill Kokichi. Kokichi is already so weakened to the point that he can't fight Shuichi off. 

It would be easy. 

Kokichi has made it so easy-

Arms tighten before slowly easing off of Kokichi's body. 

“I think that I understand now,” Shuichi looks down at Kokichi's twisted face with soft eyes and lips curling into an even softer frown. Kokichi hates it.

He sneers looking at the floor, “Don't fucking care what you think you understand, Saihara. Just let me go already.” 

He tries, doesn't he? Even when it makes DICE cringe away from him. When it makes him do nothing but disappoint everyone. Trying to not be a monster is what he owes for that failure. Still, Kokichi can't even last a full day around actual people before he starts wanting to murder them just to satisfy his own gluttony. 

He thought that he had trained his body well. 

Shuichi is trying to pat his back and comfort him. It feels dirty, and Kokichi can't handle the feeling of disturbing friendship. If it can even be called that. 

A sigh rings out and Shuichi's hand stops, “So, Ouma-kun is a ghoul here.”

There isn't any noise nor struggle from Kokichi now. 

“That figures, really… If you couldn't stand to eat, then you didn't have to make yourself,” Shuichi says. “I would have given you my coffee.”

Kokichi stares. 

No. No, no no no no! 

There's a burst of energy spilling out into the farthest reaches of Kokichi's body. He knows, Shumai is looking at me- and Kokichi pushes himself back from that delicious smelling boy. He lands on his ass and stares forward with a face forced blank. Shuichi looks at him like Kokichi hasn't done anything wrong. It's horrible and sends the skin of Kokichi's neck into a frenzy of itching. 

“I have no idea what you mean,” says a voice low and even. It's alien to Kokichi's ears. 

But the Detective is having none of it. Perhaps it's due to his talent, or maybe Shuichi lied about that. Maybe Shuichi is a horrible awful liar just like Kokichi has always been. 

His eyes are burning, Kokichi numbly realizes. 

“I won't hurt you,” Shuichi says. 

Calmly and steadily. Like he's not a weak human sitting vulnerable before a monster. 

Kokichi needs to get away from this outlandish and serene boy. This is too dangerous, far too likely to go so horribly wrong. Worse than it already has. But he can only just barely breathe-

“I know it will hurt, but you're dying right now! Please Boss!” and the injured girl walked closer to her fatally wounded leader. 

But was that what Kokoro had said? 

“B-boss? What are… Kokichi?” and the girl stepped back from the mindless walking corpse that came for her. 

Had she smiled or had she tried to crawl away? 

Had she known that her brother would never see her ever again? 

Kokichi has to get away. He wants to run away and go back to his room-

“Hurt me?” Kokichi mutters. A shaking grin paints its way across his face, bangs covering pulsing eyes that grow dark and bright red all at once. It feels natural. 

Like a monster's nature, this can never leave Kokichi until something puts him out of his misery. 

This time, when Kokichi snaps his head up and locks his burning gaze on Shuichi, there is an instant and obvious flinch. Gold eyes widen and Kokichi can see how the human’s pulse kicks up. The sweat growing fresh is something that Kokichi can almost taste. Seeing a kakugan for the probably first time does that. 

He laughs and wants to die at the sound. 

But Kokichi always wants to die so, “How the fuck would some meat sack like you manage to hurt me?”

Stop talking like that… 

“God, don't you think? An Ultimate Detective like you should be able to figure me out!” Kokichi cackles. “The reason I'm not eating you and playing along… is because I have no idea what will happen if I really start the killing game!”

Shuichi’s mouth twists into a confused frown, “That doesn't actually make sense.”

Kokichi smiles with pearly white teeth gleaming. 

“That's sooooo pathetic of you, Saihara-chan,” he purrs. 

He gets to his wobbly feet and sneers when Shuichi jerks back. This is fine, Kokichi reminds himself. Thus, simply continue as needed. 

Kokichi hums, “An important and dangerous ghoul like me is obviously going to be bad off. Since I only just got out of super duper ghoul prison.”

A bead of sweat coalesces at Shuichi's temple. Neither of them need to say the name, the only special prison just for ghouls like that is Cochlea. Highly guarded, it's a pit where all of the most dangerous ghouls captured by the CCG are kept. Kokichi is honestly of the opinion that the freakshows in there deserve it. Pumped for information, kagune harvested and made into quinque over and over-

Especially the ones that might be in there because Kokichi has so helpfully put them there. 

But this is the story that is spilling out from Kokichi's traitorous lips, so he continues to let it spin and spin. 

Lips twist further and warp wider. Like a crescent moon stretching across Kokichi's death pale face, a sight reflected in restroom mirrors and seen via peripheral vision. His eyes too are made into thin slices of black. The only thing that stands out, other than how fucking terrifying Kokichi looks to himself, is those horrible pinpoints of red. 

Kokichi lets self disgust sink into his words, “If I kill and eat you then it'll be obvious what's going on… If I eat anyone, then I'll probably die! And a starved binge eater like me won't be satisfied with just one.”

“If I kill everyone, then what will really happen when I get out?” the ghoul, the masterful monster, questions with a nonchalant gesture of its hands.

Shuichi’s brain is visibly working on figuring out the truth. 

“You wouldn't eat us,” he whispers. 

He sounds so breathless and desperate for Kokichi to be lying. 

Something in Kokichi's throat bubbles up a giggle and nurtures it into a full blown chuckle. He steps around Shuichi's prone form and giggles as his shoes clack against those boring tiles. 

“I won't! But not because I like you, or because it'd make me feel bad,” Kokichi lies. “Don't tell me that you thought me being so starved was because I feel bad about eating humans?”

The Ultimate Detective flinches far more obviously this time. Something in Kokichi's body hates that fact even more than he knows he should. 

Instead of breaking, Kokichi scoffs. 

“Everything I do is because I want to save my own skin, the feelings of helpless ants like you don't factor in at all.”

It isn't true at all, Kokichi wants to scream at himself. Those little ants aren't helpless either. Even ants can kill a hornet. Even a single speck of dust can bring down an amalgamation of drooling mouths, looking for their next meal. 

That's the only worthwhile lesson that Kokichi ever learned from those people. 

Because, “Your friends in school look so cute. Hey, ***** what do you think about your birthday meal…”. But, photos-recordings-papers-samples ‘anonymously’ handed over by tiny hands belonging to a child with tiny feet that run and run. So, hundreds of monsters hunted down and killed and captured while the smallest and most insignificant escapes into gutters where it belongs.

Prevention is the only option, Kokichi reminds himself. You can only try and try to be what you aren't. But it will hurt you to lie to yourself and in the end, you will fail, and in the end you will have no choice but to accept what you are. 

So instead… 

Kokichi glares at wet eyes shining up at him like jewelry and walks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you guys think that there is a better way to clean up the tags and summarize this stuff, please feel free to say in the comments. Life has been very busy lately, and I've recently had some conversations that make me reconsider my approach to warnings.
> 
> Warnings specifically for this chapter, maggots and auto-cannibalism.


	3. Important Notice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I for those that do not want to hear my excuses, this can be considered dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a longer but not full explanation, as the explanation is extremely personal, two if the biggest reasons I started writing in general are gone. One in a permanent sense, my grandmother. The second being the person who I fell in love with and was recently broken up with after dating, because they cannot see me romantically. 
> 
> I can certainly say that in a way I started writing because of them. I wrote for them. I possibly became dependant on them emotionally and made sure to hide it. More as well, that I'm not sure if I can even want to say. But the result is the same. I don't think that this series will be continued. 
> 
> Please consider it dead.

This series started through a mix of emotions surrounding my grandmother's impending death via breast cancer that spread to her liver, a great love for the game and all it's characters, and my friendship and growing crush on someone I immediately clicked with.

Since the first of July, my grandmother has been deceased. I am 23 years old, constantly worried about becoming homeless, and having to dodge an emotionally abusive cousin living with us; I was left to plan her funeral almost entirely by myself. The only human I know in meat space, that I can safely say loved me in a healthy manner, left me and with her a huge chunk of my will to finish Rotary. 

The other third of this trio, the person I am in love with, I confessed to and was accepted after a short conversation. Today I was was broken up with because they could not find romantic feelings for me. Like when I confessed, I cried. But this time there is no happy ending to make me giddy instead. 

I have rewritten this status update multiple times. I have a much larger version on Google docs. Forgive me, but I will not be sharing it. It grew too personal. 

But as I've stated before, this series is dead. I'm not sure if I will ever revive it. I don't want to look at it. I was going to finally finish my other two wips today and tomorrow, and start on this project again, but I can't right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My twitter is @Lilicatte 
> 
> Ask questions there. Thank you for reading and putting up with me, and again, I'm sorry for this. From the start I did not want to become the person that abandons something.

**Author's Note:**

> Rotisserie, a style of cooking where ingredients are stabbed with poles or sticks, and slowly roasted. 
> 
> Did you miss your daily dose of sad cannibalism hour? This one is even more of a doozy, and it's also a little answer arc for this series. You can expect the fic to be more graphic due to the ghoul character being Kokichi this time. And yeah, Kokichi absolutely despises himself here. Preemptively adding unreliable narrator this time. 
> 
> Clarification of warnings time. Auto cannibalism, cannibalistic thoughts about everyone but Kiibo, Kokichi flagrantly hurting himself, murder, describing foods as comprehended by ghouls (ie utterly disgusting), extremely disordered eating and content involving puking in a more graphic manner than before, harm to children, maggots inside of a living person's leg. It's not exactly child friendly. He eats himself, Jim.


End file.
